So frost got buffed. Hurray! Now please, be silent, stop the clapping, and allow me to be the wet blanket.
These are the two proposed changes:
- Frozen Core now also causes your Ice Lance criticals to reduce the cast time of your next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt by 0.4/0.7/1 sec.
- Glyph of Eternal Water – Your Summon Water Elemental now lasts indefinitely, but your Water Elemental can no longer cast Freeze.
Frozen Core, in its current incarnation, will never make it live. Sorry, not happening. That amount of burst damage is absolutely INSANE for PvP. Frost is already a very strong, if not the strongest, PvP caster in the game, giving them a tool like this game breakingly good.
That said, it is good for raider frost mages, though not quite as good as it would seem.
The triggering ice lance must come from a FoF proc, otherwise the damage it would deal isn’t even close to being worth the GCD. Even then, a quadruple damage ice lance with an 85% plus crit chance is still a DPS loss, though the net effect of the hasted frostbolt is a very small DPS increase (sub 3%).
And it’s only an increase if that ice lance is using the ghost charge on FoF. If it’s using one of the legitimate charges, it’s a net DPS loss.
AND it’s worth is even less when you have major haste buffs up. IV or Bloodlust reduces the base cast time of FrB down low enough that any extra haste, such as that provided by Frozen Core, is superfluous. Useless.
Though there are some interesting possibilities involving switching to FFB for these procs when IV and/or friends are up to avoid hitting the GCD. I haven’t looked into that nearly as much, so I can’t say for sure.
Net result? Frozen Core is a very small buff for frost PvE, and a HUGE buff for frost PvP. Hence, it won’t make it in as is.
The elemental change is quite the opposite. It doesn’t effect PvP whatsoever, as first off, no PvP frost mage used glyph of WE anyway, and two the caveat completely discourages its use in case any PvP frosties were getting any bright ideas.
The buff it provides to raiding is HUGE. Well, it has the potential to be huge.
Changing the elemental from a temporary cooldown to a permanent pet changes everything. Absolutely everything.
First, by simple merit of being a permanent pet, this means the elemental is eligible for any and all raid buffs. Arcane Intellect, Kings, Divine Spirit…
Second, the elemental already contributes to 10% plus of a frost mage’s damage on any given fight, a change like this would effectively double that contribution, causing a massive increase to frost mage DPS. Well, relatively massive.
Third, this drastically changes where talent points need to be spent.
Enduring Winter, the replenishment/extended WE up time talent is significantly less useful. Especially if you’re in a raid that already has, say, a ret paladin, bringing replenishment yourself is superfluous. Extending the uptime on your elemental is, of course, useless. You could get away with one, or even zero, points here.
The worth of Cold Snap and Cold as Ice are also significantly reduced. The primary purpose of Cold Snap, as far as DPS is concerned, is for back to back water elementals. Double IVs are mighty fine and all, but the increase from that is nothing compared to back to back elementals. The 20% reduced cooldown to summon WE is also effectively useless.
Thus, skipping Cold as Ice will cause no issues, and even skipping Cold Snap will be largely inconsequential as far as DPS goes.
Net gain, three talent points would be freed up by such a change, to be spent where you deem fit. Grab Cold Snap anyways? Go for it, double Ice Block has its uses.
A DPS increase AND you still have a couple talent points left over to spend on frivolous flavour? WTF?!
The only real remaining issue is mana. How’s the elemental’s mana pool going to hold up if it’s a permanent pet?
My vote is to let the elemental have a Mana Feed style ability. That is, when the mage gains mana, the elemental gains an equal (or similar) amount of mana, too. Popping a mana gem, for instance, or a mana potion, would grant you and your elemental the same amount of mana.
Hmm…
If they become permanent pets, do they get a name?
I certainly hope so. I will probably go back to frost from Arcane – simply because I like the playstyle better, and I like the Ice Barrier damage reduction (especially in ToC). I’ll be the first to admit that I proably don’t push the limit on my mage – after all, I’m a Paladin first. I will be that frost mage who dual specs frost/frost – just so I can PvP and PvE with the same spec.
This also means that the Glyph of Frost Bolt may find a home in my book….
Don’t you just love us noobs who dabble in your world instead of staying in our own? And yes – my ice block is on the same key bind as my bubble….
I do the same thing. Ice Block, Divine Bubble Bath, Vanish, Icebound Fortitude… all get the same keybind.
I actually stopped playing wow but still read your post, which I very much enjoy
. Frost was by far my favorite spec with arcane coming in a very close second. And I LOVED the water elemental.
If this change makes it live and they allow the water elemental to be a permanent pet and guilds will actually allow people to raid as frost, I would consider making a comback
My mage as he stands is decked out in full t8 so I think I’d probably still do some good dps.
Also, have you been able to find images of mage t10 yet? I usually read your blog at work and half my internet pages are blocked so your one of my main sources for new wow info. haha
Anyway keep up the great work…and if you ever want to add music to your site I just released a CD.
http://www.sonicbids.com/jaretcampisi
I think even more than the changes themselves, the fact that Blizz is trying to improve the Frost spec viability is huge. I don’t care if everything is fixed with the next patch, as long as I know the priority is there.
This. The fact that they’re at least trying has had me giddy for days.
One more thing is needed to fix frost PvE; allow deep freeze to make the boss frozen without the stun. It really can’t be that hard. Frostfire bolt for example, has a snare/dot on bosses that are immune to snare. Allowing deep freeze to work on bosses would increase PvE dps while not buffing PvP.
Every 30 seconds a mage could get a finger’s of the frost proc, use frostbolt, use deep freeze, use ice lance, use frozen core frostbolt and Ice lance. If they have haste buffs, a mage could fit in another shatter combo. If GCD capped a mage could switch out frostbolt for frostfire bolt. This would be a VERY interesting and dynamic rotation with the 3.3 changes.
PS: Frost mages also need random water elemental names. For example, Frosty, Splashy, Tridus, Poseidon, Neptune, Oceanus, Tethys, Anapos, Squirtle (Jk), Triton or Aborius.
on the plus side, scorch is getting a nice buff for us fire mages.
; )
IIII PLAY A DEATH KNIGHT!!!
DAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
LOL, just had to stop by and pop in after seeing the post title in a feed reader. Glad to hear your spec got buffed. Here’s a magely question for you: Does this mean frost is back to being better than arcane again? My understanding was that arcane was the new hotness with the last patch.
My initial napkin math is still showing frost as behind the two main ones, though it is closer than it has been in a very, very long time.
Perma-Pet makes me happy. Screw Fire builds, I’m going 71 frost!
They’re buffing frost…in PvE? *gasp*
Next thing ya know, Blizzard will buff affliction warlocks.
*pause*
Naaaah
* Water Elemental: Waterbolt mana cost reduced by 80%.
From EmEmOh-Champeen.
Well, there’s your answer to WE mana problems. I guess you can say W/E to WE mana issues!
Awful pun
Arcane mages now is the time to return to your loved specs.
“Glyph of Eternal Water – Your Summon Water Elemental now lasts indefinitely, but your Water Elemental can no longer cast Freeze. ”
In pvp, the opponent will be permanently slowed? Omg.
This post should have a diaper required warning!
I was wondering if anybody has seen any testing results from the latest PTR build for 3.3
I’m really hoping that PVE frost DPS might make it back to viable for raiding, or very close (say within 10% of Arcance / Fire)
Still the changes should mean it’s fun as an off spec for badge grinding 5 man heroics